The UN has suspended operation of all of its food distribution outlets in Gaza following protesters storming one of them. The centers will resume operation when the UN Relief and Works Agency gets safety confirmation for its property and staff.

On Thursday dozens of men stormed one of UNRWA’s distribution
centers in protest against the UN suspending direct financial
assistance to thousands of poor Palestinian families in Gaza
starting from April 1. The cash aid was halted due to significant
budget cuts of UNRWA, which already caused a US$67-million-plus
deficit in the organization’s budget.

In return, UNRWA announced temporary closure of their field food
distribution centers due to "a dramatic and disturbing
escalation in a series of demonstrations that have taken place over
the past week," UNRWA said in its statement.

The UNRWA’s chief in Gaza has been categorical.

"What happened today was completely unacceptable,”
acknowledged in the statement Robert Turner, head of the agency's
Gaza operations.

Now Palestinians in Gaza are not likely to get any help at all
as the UNRWA has been supporting nearly a half, 800,000
Palestinians out of a total 1.7 million population in Gaza. The
UNRWA also still runs several dozens of schools and medical clinics
in Gaza.

It is also worth noting that the UNRWA has been feeding 25,000
people in Gaza on a daily basis.

"All relief and distribution centers will consequently remain
closed until guarantees are given by all relevant groups that UNRWA
operations can continue unhindered," Turner claimed.

With the distinct prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe on the
horizon, the Palestinian Hamas group, which has been in charge in
Gaza since 2007 and is supposed to keep order and security on the
territory of the Strip, has voiced its concerns, calling the
closure of food centers “unjustified”.

Answering the UNRWA’s accusations of an “apparently pre-planned,
unwarranted and unprecedented” attack, a spokesman for Hamas in
Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, pointed out that the Hamas militia had
arrived at the scene of the assault on the UNRWA compound after a
phone call and ended the riot immediately.

“We are asking the UNRWA to rethink their decision," Abu
Zuhri said.

“We fully understand the impact the decision to suspend cash
assistance had on some of our beneficiaries,” Turner
declared.

Since Israel has established a blockade of its border with Gaza,
the suspension of help could become a knockout blow to Gaza’s
economy, only adding problems to the Palestinian population already
living in ghetto-like conditions.

Gaza-based Freelance journalist Harry Fear told RT that the lack
of provision from UNRWA would have serious ramifications for the
entire Palestinian population.

"More than 60 per cent of the population of Gaza is
vulnerable to food insecurity even after the UNRA food
provision,” Mr. Fear told RT, adding that the lack of provision
would suffocate the refugee population.

“The benchmark is so severe that any temporary or even
prolonged aid restriction will definitely have a very severe effect
on at least thousands of Palestinians,” concluded Mr.
Fear.

Israel is currently conducting occasional airstrikes against
Hamas activists in retaliation for launches of homemade rockets in the direction of
Israel.

The border with Egypt also remains securely closed after the
incident on August 5 last year, when a group of Islamist militants
attacked an Egyptian checkpoint along the border with
Israel on Sinai Peninsula, killing 16 soldiers. Later on the
militants were eliminated by the IDF while trying to force their
way deep into Israeli territory.

Cairo wants no more problems on the border with Israel, so they
re-opened only one crossing, Rafah, on the Egypt-Gaza border that
connects 1.7 million people with the outside word. The Egyptian
army has also begun sealing some of the 1,200 illegal tunnels that
currently permeate the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip.